I am Founder and Principal at Bersin by Deloitte, leading provider of research-based membership programs in human resources (HR), talent and learning. Hundreds of the Global 2000 and Fortune 1000 use our proven people strategies to drive exceptional business results.

I've spent much of my career in technology, sales, marketing, and business leadership and I actively write about major global trends in leadership, management, HR and talent management technologies. I live in the San Francisco area, close enough to Silicon Valley to keep up with new technology and its impact on the business of talent.

It's Not The CEO, It's The Leadership Strategy That Matters.

Let’s face it. CEOs come and go. But leadership, if developed in a comprehensive way, endures.

In the last few years we’ve seen new CEO’s at Yahoo, HP, Apple, and other prominent companies, and in each case we watch to see if the CEO can “pull it off.”

Well, while the CEO is a very important person, our research shows that enduring business performance is really driven at much deeper levels: a focus on leadership strategy. Long term business performance comes from leadership culture and careful and continuous development of leadership at all levels. It’s not all about the CEO.

In this research we looked at hundreds of companies over the last few years and correlated their business performance to a variety of different people and talent practices.

After looking at many talent management practices (including the purchase of expensive software), we found that a company’s level of maturity in their leadership development has a greater impact on their long term business performance than almost all else. And this impact transcends changes in the CEO.

Regardless of who the CEO may be, operational execution takes place at the mid-level and supervisory level. When these individuals are well aligned, coached, and trained, the business thrives.

High-performing companies understand this, and they build a leadership development program which uniquely trains, supports, and selects people who drive their business’s strategy. By doing this, they build execution into the culture.

A great example of this is UPS. UPS is a company which has outperformed other express companies for many years and it continues to transform itself from its origin as a horse and buggy delivery company. The company promotes from within and continues to promote a leadership culture of customer service, safety, and entrepreneurship. If the CEO were replaced, he or she would come into a company with a deep rooted leadership culture.

At times this culture needs to change. During my years at IBM the company went through a wrenching transformation as Lou Gerstner came in and changed the company from a “seller of solid technology” to a “deliverer of high value services.” This meant bringing in many new leaders, building a consulting mindset, and driving a different type of innovation and creativity into the management team. (Xerox is going through this process today.)

While I’m sure Sam Palmisano had much to do with driving this forward, now the company has deep roots of leadership from which to grow this base. And Ginny Rometti can build and evolve this leadership into the future.

2. High-Performers develop leaders at all levels.

High performing companies understand that execution takes place at the grass roots level. It is the line managers, supervisors, and middle managers who make things happen. If the CEO doesn’t push his or her leadership strategy down effectively, it wont take hold. In fact our research shows that the best companies develop leaders from the bottom up. Senior executives “serve” the needs of line leaders, like an inverse pyramid.

The “inverse pyramid” of leadership is one now widely used by many agile organizations. In our company we have a philosophy that “everyone is a leader” and each individual is given the responsibility to understand the business and make decisions which support the mission of the entire organization. Accenture calls this “stewardship” and they reinforce to managers that they must “leave work each day making Accenture a better organization.”

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

Great article, but the basic question still remains: how do you create a culture continues to produce effective leaders over the long haul? David Marquet’s just released book, Turn The Ship Around: How To Create Leadership At Every Level, answers exactly that question. Retired U.S. Navy Captain David Marquet tells the tale of how he led the submarine USS Santa Fe to an unprecedented level of success by changing a few basic behaviors and suppressing his urge to take charge and constantly issue orders. The most powerful and enduring aspect of Marquet’s approach is that his ship and crew continued to excel long after his departure, with a highly disproportionate number of his officers (10) going on to command their own submarines. Marquet certainly knows how to produce leaders and the strategies that worked so effectively on his submarine will certainly help any CEO leave a legacy of leadership.

Thanks Joe, I read this book and it’s very very useful. Our COO is an ex-Navy leader and he showed me how many wonderful leadership qualities the Navy teaches. The concept of “leaders have each other’s backs” and “everyone is a leader” is a huge and powerful concept, one which is really lost on many HR people (and many business people). It takes a different approach to leadership, but it’s one which I really believe in – and our research clearly validates it.

As an HR professional, I believe that we do believe that “everyone is a leader” and promote that within our companies. All too often HR gets a bad reputation as being the “police” in an organization. More and more we have become a true business partner and are “selling” in our positions every day and are truly a value added to assist employees in making strides, being heard in their departments and growing significantly in their roles.

The “culture of leadership” comment refers to executives and managers who spend time “building people” not just “building the business.” In nearly every business situation there is a “business strategy” and a “people strategy.” Well run companies have a complete focus on “leadership development” as a strategic part of HR and executive focus.

Nice article Josh! I agree it’s about the integration of business strategy with people strategy — CEOs need to be very clear and aligned with the mission, goals and direction so their leaders can wrap their arms around it and communicate it to their teams. It’s the clarity around why they’re doing what their doing that drives motivation and achievement in an agile organization. Look forward to reading the white paper you reference below.

There is no question that leadership must fit. the strategy. Having been in executive development and then GE corporate planner it was clear that there are several types of leaders and each type fits specific strategic needs. In 1993 I published Risktaker, Caretaker, Surgeon Undertaker- the four faces of Strategic Leadership (Wiley) and used this in my consulting practice. It was very successful in helping to match the right leader for the right strategy. In the US today we have too many surgeons and not enough risktakers. In my most recent book The Secret to GE’s Success.. I use L.A.T.I.N to show why GE was able to be the longest lasting company on the DOW. In short, I clear that the best strategy will fail if it has the wrong leader.

Sounds a little like “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”? Are CEOs responsible for the sort of leadership development culture in the companies they happen to have the helm of? I think so. That, in a way, was the IBM story, ja? A great CEO can take over a company with little or no leadership development culture and turn it around in such a way that, by the time he or she leaves, the company will say “It’s Not The CEO, It’s The Leadership Strategy That Matters”. Who was instrumental in establishing that leadership strategy in the first place? On the other hand, if that same company say, three years later, somehow got a CEO reminiscent of a Stalin, then the same culture would disappear in very short order, would it not? I think it is neither the CEO, nor the strategy nor the culture, culture meaning the manifest expression of the true values of an organization. Is it not all three? A Middle East proverb says “I would rather have an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep”, with which I partially agree. Best situation is to have an army of lions led by a lion king, so to speak. I suppose that sort of company might last a little longer.